Willa ran as fast as she could to the hanger kitty corner from the one she was leaving. As she got nearer she could hear gravity plates engaging. “Shit!” She ran faster towards the bay. As she got closer her skin began to itch. By the time she got to the doors her teeth were chattering from the vibration of the grav plates, and each step felt like her leg was going to try and fly off in the opposite direction. As soon as she was past the doors she started waving her arms and screaming “JUICE,” though she wasn’t sure why she was doing the latter.

It was a wild hope. She couldn't see Juice, or even be sure she was piloting the clunky looking scow. The cockpit windows were silvered over and so were almost indistinguishable from the hull. A fact that was true on all space craft.

But after a few nervous seconds the bone chattering rumble of the grav plates lessoned and the landing gear descended from the belly of the craft. As it settled back to the ground, Juice emerged in the dying whine of grav plates and and power plants.

"What's up? Your ship fucking explode or something?" She demanded.

With a deep breath to refill her lungs Willa gave Juice a quick smile and replied, “Not yet, I’m hoping syou can help us with that though. You said that you mothballed it for the Senator. Do you have any of the equipment that you took out still? Maybe you can help us figure out how to put that beautiful puzzle back together. She’s a crazy thing, and since you saw her still together…”

The greasy mechanic shrugged. "She still is together -- as together as the previous owner left her, anyway. All I really did is pump down the tanks and lubricate everything so she'd fire up again." She unzipped her flight jacket and pulled out a cigarette. "Smoke?" She offered one to Willa. "I did make up a new set of fuel nozzles for her though," she grinned. "That was when I though old Pasty Face was gonna let me cherry her out. Got some other things I made up too. Wanna see?"

Willa held up her hand in declination, and shook her head. Her eyes lit up when she heard that Juice had been working on parts. “I’d love to see them! How long has she been locked up in there?” she pointed over her shoulder.

"Almost ten years," Juice sighed. "A belter tug found her adrift and towed her in, pretty much as you see her now, 'scept that there was blood and fuckin' guts splattered all over the bridge. The cargo bay'd been shot to hell and they'd set charges to blow the hull. Look close and you'll still see laser burns in the power plants. I completely replaced the fuel purification control system. it had been totally shit canned by the fire fight. I made up new fuel nozzles, redesigned the main server relay, beefed up fire control... Then the Old Man called me off. Told me to lock it up. So I moth balled her and let her rot," she shrugged, blowing a huge cloud of smoke into the air. "Fuckin' sucks if you ask me. I dunno who modified her, but they had an eye. Lacked skill maybe, but she's a beautiful piece of work -- or could be."

“Sounds like she has a pretty interesting history, and you’re right, she could be damn fine little lady. I wish we had time to fix her up now, but the Senator wants us to get going as soon as possible. Maybe we have time to make a couple of modifications. What kind of software was left in her systems? Did you have any problems with the security system?”

Juice chortled at that, then started to cough -- a typical smoker's cough. She reached into one of her tool boxes and picked out a ball peen hammer. "The ultimate remedy," she grinned -- it wasn't exactly a pretty sight. "I smashed the fucking security over-ride panel in the forward landing gear bay, then gave her a few days to lose her bloody mind. Nothing could be simpler -- if you have the time."

Laughing, Willa replied, “That’ll do it! One less thing we have to worry about, I guess.”

The mechanic rummaged around in her tool boxes for a minute, the half smoked cigarette hanging out of her mouth. "Ah!" She finally grinned tightly. "Here." She tossed Willa a box with a numeric key pad on it and wires hanging out of it. "That should fit where the one I smashed went. Anything else I can do for you? I've got a crummy loaded with mad miners out there waiting for me out there." She thumbed in the direction of the space door.

Catching the pad with ease, Willa slung it over her shoulder. “That’s great! Thanks! The fuel nozzles, and other upgrades you were working on? If you could show me where those are, I can get my crew to install them. That is, if you are willing to let them go. I can’t imagine they would fit into any other ship.”

"Got that fuckin right sister," Juice drawled. "But if you're the one old Tight Wad been waitin' for, then I suppose they go to you guys. Come on." She threw her cigarette butt off to the side and headed over to the tool cage, which also happened to also be supply.

"Hey Butch!" She yelled several minutes later as they came into the dirty tool shed. A fat guy came out from around several rows of tools and supplies. He was dressed in over sized coveralls and little else. "Tell Jerry to get after that ditched crummy. I got other things to do." She led Willa out a side door. "And get me floater. In fact, get me two. I'm gonna need 'em."

"Hey!" The fat man huffed, coming around to the work bench -- or counter, take your pick. "You with that IFS conversion?" He wheezed to Willa, mopping his sweaty brow with a greasy rag.

Willa lifted her head to Butch, at his greeting. “Yeah, that’s me. The conversion. Have you had a look at her? Quite a piece of work.”

"I could give a crap about your goddamned starship, sister," the fat man huffed. "What I wanna know is if this is what you wanna -- uh, eat for sixty odd days?"

He shoved a requisition form into her hands. The list included cases of various sorts of liquor and mixers and the various foods usually found in a bar to help absorb (and enhance) the alcohol consumption. There was nothing else on the requisition form for the ship's mess. No food, water, first aid supplies, soap, or any of the hundred other basic necessities that it took to keep a crew alive and healthy in space for months at a time. But the tail number matched her ship.

As she read over the requisition form Willa’s face started to turn red. “Thank you for point this out to me.” she said calmly. “I’ll send someone over to fix this in a bit. I need to get the ship in flying order at the moment.” With a tight smile she turned to follow Juice.

"Red! Butch! Get yer butts over here, and fire up that crane." Juice kept walking toward the back of a large bay full of equipment and cargo pallets loaded with who knew what. It was a converted hanger. That was easy to see. It also meant there was lots of room to store `stuff'. And `stuff' was just what the place was full of.

In the back corner of the hanger she stopped in front of two tarp covered wooden pallets. "Here yah go," she announced, pulling the dusty tarp off. Underneath were two brand new, shining fuel nozzles that were easily twice as tall as Willa. "Some of my best work. I matched them to the output of the drives. They should take whatever it can put out -- and then a bit more."

Her lips puckered and out came a long slow cat call whistle. Willa was impressed! “These are beautiful Juice! The Senator better be paying you handsomely!”

She shrugged and pulled out another cigarette. "Me and ol' Pasty Face have come to a few understandings over the years," she grinned her yellow, broken toothed grin. "'Bout the time he got certain ideas about my space station." She kicked the tarp aside off of a smaller pallet. "Here's your computer shit. I had to make most of it by hand cuz there ain't nothing fuckin' like it in this galaxy so far as I can find. Probably why the deceased owners were using back yard crap and off the shelf junk. Unless you got Imperial connections, you ain't gonna match many of the systems on that ship -- and maybe not even then. Personally, I think the systems on that ship were experimental shit somebody tagged illegally."

She had to raise an eyebrow at the pile of computer hardware. It looked as if it was well made at least. Willa just hoped that it would all fit back in without too much trouble. That was a lot of hardware! “We’ll have to see once we get it up and running. It seems we have a pretty talented crew. Let’s hope they can work with this.”

Again a shrug as she took a drag off her new smoke. "I suppose that depends on how good your crew chief is. I designed it to standard military specs, so any idiot that got out of tech school should be able to install it. The secrets are in the boxes," she kicked one and smiled. "That was the fun part. But maybe not so fun if someone shoots it up," she looked more serious. "Oh well. You'll have to make do."

“We should be fine then.” Willa wanted to open the boxes and take a look, but that would have to wait. She looked around at all the stuff in the hanger wondering what was next.

A man came over pushing a floater pallet. Juice stepped aside so he could get at the wooden pallet loaded with electronics. "You can take this back with you. I'll have the boys truck out the scaffold and other shit you're gonna need to get to those nozzles changed off. I'll have these new ones there before you're ready to put them on." She headed back across the hanger to the office. "I'll have the fuel browsers show up in about four hours. By the time they're done you'll be ready for a load out, I expect. Butch!" She yelled as they entered the office again. She picked up a pad and started filling out a form. "Got some real work for your fat ass to do for a change. Here comes your floater," she observed, looking out the dirty window. "See ya soon."

Willa held out her hand to Juice, “Thanks for all your help. This should make things so much easier.” Then she turned to the pallet and pushed it back to their maintenance bay.